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Tire Pressure / MPG (Need Advice)

Hello All,

I jut bought a used (2009) Escape HEV on Saturday and have been immersing myself in information (and probably some misinformation) on all things related. I am interested in maintaining my new ride and maximizing its fuel performance but want to make sure that I am not operating under false info.

The first question is related to the fuel performance based on tire pressure. I am pretty sure that the treads are the stock Michelin (not sure though do these things last 30K?) are these suitable for inflation to max sidewall pressure? Note, I live in Northern Ohio where we get some fair snowfall this time of year. It is a risk / saving question where I am safer to leave the lower pressure during the cold months?

Any time your tread wear is

Any time your tread wear is reduced, so is traction on any surface. Lowing the air pressure does more harm to wear than adding traction because at some point the contact patch in a steel belted tire will be reduced in turns. In turns, low tire pressure allows the tire to collapsed and your riding on the sidewall instead of the tread. Riding on any part of the sidewall reduces traction. Higher pressure allows the contact patch to stay in place where the tread needs to stay on the road surface for the best traction.

If your losing to much traction in snow, chances are your tread is to worn or you may need more of a all-terrain or even studded tire for ice. If you have the original Michelin Tours with 30,000 miles, the tread depth, not the tire pressure will be the problem with traction.

I have two complete sets of Michelin Tours on my '05 and '09 FEH. One set has about 30,000 miles and the other set has very little wear. In rain, the newer set still has excellent traction but the older set started losing traction with hard acceleration from a stop the other day for the first time. I run 50psi with no traction problems and I get the best wear and mileage possible. I haven't seen any problems cornering hard on dry surfaces, but I'm going to expect more problems in the rain doing that with the worn set.

I purchased my 2006 new and

I purchased my 2006 new and after finding this site tried to maintain 40psi, (never was comfortable going to the max 44 psi) We just replaced the original set two weeks ago with 72,000. While the center of the tire still had sufficient tread to pass inspection the inner tread was close enough to require replacement.